Book 5
111
Heraclius of Segesta also pleads his cause; a man of the very noblest descent in his own city. Listen, O judges, as your humanity requires of you, for you will hear of great cruelties and injuries inflicted on the allies. Know then that the case of Heraclius was this:—that on account of a severe complaint in his eyes he had not gone to sea at all; but by his order who had the command, he had remained in his quarters at Syracuse. He certainly never betrayed the fleet; he did not run away in a fright; he did not desert the army; if he had, he might have been punished when the fleet was setting out from Syracuse. But he was in just the same condition as if he had been detected in some manifest crime; though no charge at all could be brought against him, not ever so falsely.
